The World of Ice

by R. M. Ballantyne

Entering one of the largest huts, preparations for supper were promptly begun. The Esquimaux happened to be well supplied with walrus flesh, so the lamps were replenished, and the hiss of the frying steaks and dropping fat speedily rose above all other sounds.

Meanwhile Fred and his father, having mutually recovered somewhat of their wonted composure, began to tell each other the details of their adventures since they last met, while the former prepared a cup of coffee and a steak for their mutual comfort.

“But, Father,” said Fred, busying himself at the lamp, “you have not yet told me how you came here, and what has become of the Pole Star, and how it was that one of your men came to be buried in the Esquimaux fashion, and how you got your leg broken?”

“Truly, Fred, I have not told you all that; and to give it you all in detail will afford us many a long hour of converse hereafter, if it please God, whose tenderness and watchful care of me has never failed. But I can give you a brief outline of it thus:—

“I got into Baffin’s Bay and made a good fishing of it the first year, but was beset in the ice and compelled to spend two winters in these regions. The third year we were liberated, and had almost got fairly on our homeward voyage, when a storm blew us to the north, and carried us up here. Then our good brig was nipped and went to the bottom, and all the crew were lost except myself and one man. We succeeded in leaping from one piece of loose ice to another until we reached the solid floe and gained the land, where we were kindly received by the Esquimaux. But poor Wilson did not survive long. His constitution had never been robust, and he died of consumption a week after we landed. The Esquimaux buried him after their own fashion, and, as I afterwards found, had buried a plate and a spoon along with him. These, with several other articles, had been washed ashore from the wreck. Since then I have been living the life of an Esquimaux, awaiting an opportunity of escape, either by a ship making its appearance or a tribe of natives travelling south. I soon picked up their language, and was living in comparative comfort when, during a sharp fight I chanced to have with a Polar bear, I fell and broke my leg. I have lain here for many months and have suffered much, Fred; but, thank God, I am now almost well, and can walk a little, though not yet without pain.”

“Dear Father,” said Fred, “how terribly you must have felt the want of kind hands to nurse you during those dreary months, and how lonely you must have been!”

It were impossible here to enter minutely into the details of all that Captain Ellice related to Fred during the next few days, while they remained together in the Esquimaux village. To tell of the dangers, the adventures, and the hairbreadth escapes that the crew of the Pole Star went through before the vessel finally went down would require a whole volume. We must pass it all over, and also the account of the few days that followed, during which sundry walrus were captured, and return to the Dolphin, to which Captain Ellice had been conveyed on the sledge, carefully wrapped up in deer-skins and tended by Fred.

A party of the Esquimaux accompanied them, and as a number of the natives from the other village had returned with Saunders and his men to the ship, the scene she presented, when all parties were united, was exceedingly curious and animated.

The Esquimaux soon built quite a little town of snow-huts all round the Dolphin, and the noise of traffic and intercourse was peculiarly refreshing to the ears of those who had long been accustomed to the death-like stillness of an Arctic winter. The beneficial effect of the change on men and dogs was instantaneous. Their spirits rose at once, and this, with the ample supply of fresh meat that had been procured, soon began to drive scurvy away.

There was one dark spot, however, in this otherwise pleasant scene—one impending event that cast a gloom over all. In his narrow berth in the cabin Joseph West lay dying. Scurvy had acted more rapidly on his delicate frame than had been expected. Despite Tom Singleton’s utmost efforts and skill the fell disease gained the mastery, and it soon became evident that this hearty and excellent man was to be taken away from them.